Eugen von Blaas

Private Collection, San Antonio, Texas (since circa 1950)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Lisa is a study for a painting by the same name (sold: Sotheby’s, New York, April 20, 2005, lot 15) commissioned in 1889 by Frederick Pabst (1836-1904), founder of Pabst Brewing Company and one of the wealthiest Americans at the end of the nineteenth century.  After achieving financial success through his brewing company and various real estates ventures, Pabst acquired a voracious appetite for great works of art, buying important paintings by Bouguereau, Schreyer, Verboeckhoven, Eckenbrecher, Ridgway Knight and von Blaas during his Grand Tour from 1894 to 1895.  He established a particularly close working relationship with von Blaas, famously requesting multiple compositional changes to the sketches the artist provided for Lisa.  Perhaps because of the patron’s extensive involvement, Lisa is rare in the artist’s oeuvre.  While von Blaas frequently painted Venetian genre scenes that focused on a single woman with precise color and technique, he did not often choose such a bold approach.  Lisa possesses a particularly confident air in her strident pose as she carries baskets of ripe peaches and grapes. 

 

The present version of Lisa is closely related to Pabst’s painting, suggesting it to be perhaps one of the final ideas before the large composition was executed, or could be a later replica.  There is still much to be learned about von Blaas’s working methods.  Both versions share the same beautiful Italian model, her diverted gaze, the color and style of her distinctive dress, her strong yet graceful pose, and the portico from which she emerges.  There are, however, subtle yet deliberate differences between the finished version and the study.  In the present work, the model’s hand hangs relaxed alongside the basket of peaches she carries, whereas in the final version her fingers are clasped around the basket.  She also dons dangly gold earrings in Pabst’s portrait, an addition perhaps suggested by the patron to symbolize the finer things he had accumulated throughout his life.  Through Lisa’s comely appearance and the abundance of food she carries, von Blaas communicates the gifts of beauty and prosperity, qualities synonymous with Frederick Pabst’s affluent lifestyle.